She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,178

parking lot, have fake tags. Not stolen, mind you, but fake, and I’ll be damned if they don’t look as good as the real thing. None of the VIN numbers check out, either. They’re bogus. Never manufactured. These cars don’t exist. They don’t seem to belong to anyone. Not a single guest of the hotel or visitor. Nobody has claimed ownership of a single one.”

“Sounds very perplexing,” Fogel said.

“What brings you from Pittsburgh to Fallon, Nevada, Detective?”

Fogel shrugged. “I’m just a big fan of Top Gun.”

8

“You should slow down.”

I knew Stella was right, but every time I lifted my foot off the gas, some involuntary urge forced it back down. The yellow lines of the highway rolled under us as nothing more than a blur. Tumbleweeds and thin trees beside the road blew by so fast they appeared indiscernible from the barren desert floor. The rain of earlier had been burned away by bristling heat. I looked down at the speedometer, the needle hovered near ninety-three.

“Please, Jack.”

I lifted my foot and eased the Jeep down to seventy; forced myself to keep it there.

We were about an hour outside of Fallon.

I needed a drink. I didn’t have anything, though. Nothing in the car or my pack.

My fingers were white, I gripped the steering wheel so tight. I peeled my hands away one at a time and wiped the sweat on my jeans.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Stella’s voice was timid, meek. “Point blank like that?”

I shook my head.

“I’ve only killed bad men. Men like Leo.” She turned to me. “It’s important you understand I killed Leo, not you. I don’t want him on your conscience. Your knife may have put him down, but he was already dead. There’s no saving someone like that. He had another minute at best. You shouldn’t fret about about the ones today, either. The one you shot in the gut, he’ll live. And the man on the stairwell, he was bad. Like Leo.”

“How do you know? What if he had a wife or kids? We don’t know anything about him.”

“He was bad. I know. Even worse, he was with them.”

She said this as if it were enough, and maybe it was. I had no idea what these people did to her, what they represented.

I killed a man.

The thought sunk down into my gut, and my stomach churned.

“The police will be looking for us.”

“They won’t find any bodies,” she said.

I killed multiple men.

Stella went on. “They pointed guns at you and me and would have shot one or both of us.”

Would they? Or were they really just trying to get Stella back? The gun was nothing but a bluff. If one of them pulled the trigger on me, would it have even worked?

My breathing quickened. Icy sweat covered my face and neck. Tiny blotches appeared in my vision, floating clouds of white obscuring my view of the road, the interior of the car.

The right front tire left the pavement, followed quickly by the back, the rough shoulder grabbing and tugging the Jeep away from the road.

Stella yelped.

My left hand, slick with sweat again, slipped on the steering wheel as I pulled hard left. Gravel, rocks, and dirt sputtered against the undercarriage. Weeds smacked against the front grill, swallowed beneath. I smashed my foot down hard on the brake, too hard, and we fishtailed off the pavement entirely, skidding through the dirt, the steering wheel useless. The Jeep began to spin to the left, so I tugged the wheel to the right, in hopes of gaining control. With such a high center of gravity, Jeeps flipped easily, and I felt the right side lift off the ground. I pulled the wheel back in the other direction. The front wheels caught, gained traction, and the back fell in line. I brought the Jeep to a clunky stop, ripped off my seat belt, jumped out, and bent over in the grass.

I couldn’t remember the last time I ate, and what came up was a sickly yellow, so acidic it burned my tongue even as my stomach clenched, heaved, and I buckled further over with more.

I felt Stella’s hand on the small of my back, her other on my shoulder, squeezing through my shirt. With the last of it, I stood and wiped my mouth. “God, I’m a fucking mess.”

“You took a life. You’re human. I’d be worried if it didn’t upset you.”

When I turned back to her, I realized how pale she had become. Both her hands quivered now, not